What's In A Word?

Female celebrities including Katy Perry, Megan Traynor and Salma Hayek often get criticised by self proclaimed feminists for refusing to identify themselves as feminists. Here is the Observer's Barbara Ellen on Hayek's recent disavowal of the term:

You have to wonder – what’s with these women and their seemingly all-consuming need to distance themselves from feminism? An unworthy thought crawls through my brain: is this a man-pleasing exercise – are they afraid that men might find even the slightest whiff of feminism a turn-off, so they bang on about “equality” to keep everything safely gender-neutral and “sexy”?

Or does it go yet deeper, darker, than that, into the realms of female self-hatred? Where the cause of womankind in itself is just not good enough, interesting enough and so men must be prominently included, feted and appeased, even at a female-celebrating event? While I’m all for inclusivity, something has to explain why some women seem to feel that good instincts to support other females have to be disguised and reframed for public consumption.

 I'm going to go out on a limb and have a guess as to what the actual reason for not associating with the word "feminism". The people who most prominently embrace the term are unfortunately often like Barbara Ellen whose views are rather anti male- see this piece in which she fulminates against men using equality legislation to challenge cases of sexual discrimination.

If people use "feminism" as a cover for politically sectional and rather outlandish views on sex they should no be surprised when others don't use the term to describe all those who believe in equal treatment and freedom from discrimination. 

If every other self proclaimed patriot demonstrated that they were in actual fact rabid xenophobes then patriotism would suffer a similar fate- with people who are thoroughly patriotic shying away from the word itself.

If actual feminists, in the sense of people who believe in sexual equality, no longer like the word "feminism" then the likes of Ellen should really look at themselves.

The World Cup Is Anti Feminist Apparently

Oh no, what to do now?

In one of the passages explaining the anti-feminist nature of football Sylvia Murray Young writes:

Paul Gascoigne led a generation of males to sport the "Gazza" haircut, yet his popularity was only mildy dented by the sight of his partner Sheryl skulking past the paparazzi with a face swollen and bruised by his fists. Ched Evans was convicted for raping a drunk teenager, but incredulous fans started the #freeched hashtag and outed the victim. Football fans themselves create a demand for the trafficking of women and girls into prostitution.

The stories of a surge in trafficking of prostitutes is a factoid of dubious provenance, but it is true that some prominent footballers have treated women appallingly. However it is surely a bit of a double standard to condemn the whole of football for the actions of a handful of individuals.

When Lord Saatchi grabbed his wife round the throat did it prove that the art world is hostile to women, when the Socialist Workers Party covered up a series of rape allegations against their senior members did it prove that left wing politics is inherently misogynistic?

It seems to me that football is being singled out like this because it is largely played by working class men who are unlikely to be in the target demographic for listening to professional grievance mongers.

Sometimes It's Hard To Be A Woman.

Take a look at the Guardian's page of columnists, which features all the regular writers along with their latest columns.

If you break down the demographics there are 12 males and 8 females.

Of the dozen males the topics covered varies from sport to conspiracy theories to the economy. There is quite a substantial range of topics. In contrast the eight female writers cover a slightly different range of subjects:

• Hadley Freeman complains about the unfair burdens women in show business have to put up with.
• Barbara Ellen says about the sexist treatment of Andy Murray's mum and the unfair burdens that women in sport endure.
•  Zoe Williams writes about the royal family- while noting that "that squeamishness around discussing the female pudenda is rooted in a deeper hatred of women"

So three of the eight writing about how hard it is to be a woman.

On the front page of the Guardian's Comment Is Free section there are ten articles by women, including the one by Hadley Freeman. Others include:

•  Rhiannon Cosslett on the unfair burdens of a female royal.
• Ellie Cosgrave on sexual assault (an admittedly more serious issue than the other).
•  Nancy Cohen on women voters and the "Tsunami of anti-woman legislation".

Two of the other pieces are by ethnic minority women talking about the unfair burdens of being black.

So out of 17 different female writers, 6 are writing about sexism and 2 about racism. It seems that almost half the output of female columnists is self obsessed identity politics.

Only In The Guardian

A letter condemning all male discussion panels with an all female signitory list.

Classic Sentences From The Guardian

I don't know whether David Thompson's series of Classic Sentences From the Guardian is still going but here is an entry:

Feminism is the form of women's organisation that is prioritised both in the media and academia, but many black women have turned to womanism in an attempt to counter the ways in which the combined oppressions of race and gender affect our lives.

Of course. There are several other sentences in the same article that I could have chosen instead.

Verbally Raping A Nutter.

There is a new* femiloon on the prowl at the hallowed pages of Comment is Free, a woman with just one name, Bidisha. She's impressive and if she keeps up this consistency of writing she may surpass Cath Elliott or even Julie Bindel.

She claims to have witnessed four examples of men harassing women in public in the last three days and that this is typical. I haven't seen any examples of this is three months and I frequently follow women surreptitiously, as my many restraining orders demonstrate, so I would have spotted any weirdos out and about. Her claims stretch credibility but can't be disproved. After all if the oppression of Julia Bindel's imaginary friends demonstrates society's misogyny then why should it be different for Bidisha's?

If your going to make up bollocks it is best to present it in the form of personal anecdotes that cannot be verified, so you can make statements like:

This endemic harassment of women is verbal rape.

In the sense that 'verbal' means 'not'. Trivialising rape by redefining it to mean something else is another common theme of people like her. When she does produce facts that can be verified they are obviously untrue:

We live in a country in which domestic violence is the single biggest killer of women

How can anyone not see that this is absurd? Is there some school where you get to learn feminist mathematics, where what matters is not whether the numbers add up but how strongly one believes in them? How does she respond to the critics of her ideas?

Yet any woman who points out that misogyny is the world's driving force is ripped down in a way that is itself transparently misogynistic.

Of course.

* New in the sense that I hadn't spotted her before.

Oppressed Group Of The Day.

The position of professional women in Britain is getting worse!

Women are losing the battle for gender equality in Britain's workplaces after years of progress, a report shows today.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's annual study, which looks at the number of women given top positions in business, politics and the public sector, found women's representation had fallen in almost half the industries surveyed. It is the biggest backward step for workplace gender equality in the five years the study has been carried out

....

The commission's assessment found that the proportion of women holding key positions in British life had fallen in 12 out of the 25 categories surveyed in 2006. In politics, fewer women now hold positions of power in Parliament, the Cabinet and in the UK's regional assemblies. It would take two centuries, or another 40 elections, for women to reach parity with men on the benches of the House of Commons, the report says.

This sounds very terrible until you realise that if you have 25 categories, then fewer women represented in 12 categories means more or the same number of women in 13 categories. This looks like the kind of random fluctuation that occurs through chance. It is like producing a report on the fact that flicking a coin 25 times gives you 12 heads and 13 tails.

I am being a little bit flippant as the idea here is that because women do make up fairly low proportions of some professions it should be expected that the sex ratio should be changing in one direction. This is probably true for some professions although the idea that there is automatically a problem if a profession contains more people of one sex than the other is fatuous.

I shouldn't dismiss the report entirely since it does at least recognise something which has escaped the minds of those who draft government policy; If you raise the cost of employing women of child bearing age then fewer women are going to be employed:

Worryingly for a government that has prided itself in its attempts to boost equality in the workplace, experts warned that new provisions for maternity leave could be behind the unexpected backwards step.

Women currently receive maternity pay for nine months and can take maternity leave for up to a year, under rights which came into force in April 2007.

Ill Treatment Of Julie Bindel's Imaginary Friends Demonstrates The Oppression Of The Sisterhood

It's not often that I agree with Julie Bindel but her heartfelt article on the problems faced by female prisoners has really touched a nerve. Admittedly the reasons she gives don't appear to be uniquely applicable to women at first glance but it isn't like Ms Bindel to play something up as an example of womyn's victimhood is it?

However she has persuaded me that this situation has to be remedied so from now on I will campaign against the practice of releasing female inmates from prison which appears to cause so much hardship.

Update: Sorry I should have referred to "the problems faced by fictional female prisoners"

Quote Of The Day.

At the Spare Rib Spectator Coffee House blog Mary Wakefield applauds Harriet Harman's proposed changes to the murder laws. Her reasoning is flawless:

Reform is overdue -- there hasn't been any change in the law for 50 years

I must say murder doesn't strike me as being a crime which changes so much that laws become passe after 50 years. Incidentally this is not even the stupidest sentence in her post.

Licence To Kill

I was going to comment on this insane idea by Harriet Harperson and the coven of femiloons in the government to basically legalise husband killing, but there is no need because this brilliant article by Erin Pessey, founder of the first refuge for abused women in Britain, says it all:

But it is precisely because of my desire to protect the vulnerable that I am so opposed to Ms Harman’s absurd new plan, which is not only an affront to the basic morality of our society, but also a ridiculously one-sided, misogynistic, simplistic and dangerous response to the issue.

Indeed, as with so many of her other forays into policy-making, it is driven more by feminist ideology than compassion.

Effectively, what Harman and the ultra-feminist lobby want is a licence for women to kill.

The Guardian's favourite Millie Tant, Julie Bindel rates a mention too:

It is telling that one of the driving forces behind these proposals is Julie Bindel, of the Left-wing pressure group Justice for Women.

Ms Bindel displayed her lack of balance in a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, entitled ‘Why I hate men’.

One of her sentences read: ‘I will say loud and proud, yes, today I hate men, and will tomorrow and the day after.’

No doubt in her misogynistic world, killing men is a form of justifiable homicide. But it is an outrage that thanks to Ms Harman, feminists such as Bindel can influence public policy.

Spot on. Having Harriet Harman in charge of gender equality legislation is akin to having Abu Hamza draw up legislation pertaining to religious hatred.

Update: Via the comments under an article by the aforementioned Ms Bindel, these lunatics don't merely think that women who kill their husbands are victims, they actuallly consider them heroes fit to either receive awards or have awards named in their honour:

An Asian woman who was jailed for life for setting fire to her husband has been honoured at an awards ceremony for breaking the taboo of domestic violence.

Labour's Death Wish.

With the latest opinion polls indicating a 16 point lead for the Conservatives and Labour seemingly down to their core support of white, working class males in the North, what do Labour come up with? A plan to screw over white men:

White men could be legally blocked from jobs or promotions under controversial government plans to help women and black employees achieve equality.

Employers would be allowed to give jobs to qualified minority candidates in preference to other candidates under a change in discrimination law being drawn up by the Equalities Minister, Harriet Harman. The 'positive action' tactic, already used in the United States, has been a legal minefield in the UK and Harman's plans are likely to upset MPs who believe that merit alone should determine who is hired.

Brilliant, when Labour elected Harriet Harperson as their deputy leader it was obvious that it would end in tears. She may be able to push Labour's support below 20%.

Phallocentric Capitalism & Pharonic Circumcision

Last month I mentioned my 'hobby' of discovering the most pointless academic research that can be found via 'google scholar'. Quite by accident today I came across this paper which is unlikely to ever be surpassed-
'Pharonic Circumcision Under Patriarchy and Breast Augmentation Under Phallocentric Capitalism: Similarities and Differences'.

A Feminist Goes To Iran.

In the midst of the ongoing crisis about Iran I thought it would be fun to remind everyone what former Liberal Democrat MP and current head of the RSPCA had to say about her time in the country. The article titled 'Another Kind Of Freedom' appeared in the Guardian five years ago and I like it so much that I've referred back to it frequently. Put it this way she makes Walter Duranty look like a perceptive observer of tyranny. I won't add any further comments myself, the only purpose is to point and mock. Although I'm sure she's going to appear on the media soon spouting off about the hostage crisis, so feel free to refer back to this post. All bolding is by me.

But how many "liberals" who blame the religion for denial of women's rights, especially the compulsory wearing of hijab (a headscarf and roopush or coat), blame protestantism in Britain or catholicism in Mexico for endemic domestic violence? ....

....The other day I had lunch with three Iranian women.... They talked about their lives and what they thought about the west - only the older woman had been out of Iran. She felt sorry for western women who not only have to bring up children and run a home, but also have to go out to paid employment. She thought in that respect Iranian women were more free......

...Women in Iran have other freedoms denied to many in the west. I have a British friend, for example, married to an Iranian, who has a one-year-old child. Rather than finding the baby (who is still being breastfed) a barrier to resuming her academic career she has been given help and encouragement, including a work-based creche, by potential employers. She also will happily feed her baby in public - in restaurants (not in the toilets) and in shared taxis, and no one complains or comments....

....I find it refreshing not to see naked or half-naked women on posters advertising everything from cars to ice-cream. On the other hand, I am reliably informed that Iranian men see it as their duty to make sure their wives are satisfied in bed - not a responsibility I think many British men are familiar with. Women also keep their own names after marriage, whereas in the west the woman who does this is still seen as an oddity.

It is many years since British women have felt free to walk the city streets after dark without fear of attack. I feel very safe here.....

.... If women dress in a sexually provocative or attractive way, perhaps it is not surprising that men respond to them as sexual beings rather than as professional women or mothers or shop assistants. I am not saying that a woman who wears a short skirt is "asking for it" but I do think western women ought to examine their complicity in a society in which men are given "come-on" signals and "don't dare" messages in confusing profusion.